


come ye to the waters

by ggggnashville



Series: where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. [1]
Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: M/M, marcus keane is gay for god, marcus keane needs a hug, marcus keane ran away to be alone in his feelings and here we are, s2 spoilers, some alcohol abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 13:44:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13191327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ggggnashville/pseuds/ggggnashville
Summary: He’s compromised, and he can’t even be decent enough to regret it.





	come ye to the waters

_All sins can be forgiven._

Marcus white knuckles the neck of the whiskey bottle and stares at the pattern in the motel bed quilt. In the back of his mind he knows he’ll have to find something more permanent, but for tonight the motel will do. He can’t possibly manage to do anything more tonight. He can only sit in silence, body feeling heavier and heavier. He can still smell Tomas’ shampoo, feel his warmth. Marcus shuts his eyes and brings the bottle to his lips once more. He doesn’t know exactly when it happened, or how he let it happen, but it has happened and truthfully, he wouldn’t change it at all.

He has fallen in love, and for that he’s killed. Surely his soul is damned.

He’s compromised, and he can’t even be decent enough to regret it.

 

*

 

The ocean is the first place he goes, that second day alone. The sun has nearly set. Marcus watches the sun go down, and it’s lovely. Really, it is. But how beautiful it is makes it hateful too. Everything he’s ever found good has been taken from him. He wants to spit at the ocean. Doesn’t want to admire it. The sun goes down, settles itself behind the water, and Marcus puts his head in his hands, trying to relieve the pain in his temples and in the back of his eyes.

 

*

 

That first week he tries to sleep but can’t. He goes to the local pub more out of boredom and numbness than for a desire to leave the apartment, though that is a factor. There’s a young blond man that makes eyes at Marcus as he drinks his watery beer. Marcus smiles weakly at him but doesn’t gesture for him to approach. He’s far too young for him, just as Tomas is too young for him. But the lines of this man’s face don’t have the sweet and gentle tones and colors of Tomas’ nor does he have a reckless courage and a mile wide urgency to prove his worth to man and God. For a sick moment, Marcus can see himself taking the young man back to his motel room and letting him drink from his half full bottle of whiskey, letting him take his clothes off in the dark, letting something, anything, happen. But that’s not even the desire. He doesn’t want that at all. It’s more the idea of a new way to self-destruct, which is what Marcus truly wants. He’s never been touched in his life, and he doesn’t see the point in starting now.

 

*

 

Marcus finds himself drawing Tomas almost constantly. He won’t even realize he’s doing it. He’ll look down and see that face. The first time it happened he ripped the page out of the sketchbook, crushed it in his fist and threw the sketchbook down onto the floor. Now, as he looks down at another sketch, this time Tomas looking off to the right, he presses his finger tips to the page. He sees Tomas’ face even when he doesn’t want to, remembers every expression so clearly. Marcus misses him in ways he hadn’t known were possible.

 

*

 

He puts a deposit down and the first month’s rent. It’s month to month, so Marcus doesn’t have to stay if he doesn’t want to. He buys a very beat up truck, worse than the one he bought with Tomas. It runs, and that’s enough. Working at the docks inevitably make him think of Peter, which isn’t exactly good but it’s better than Tomas haunting his every waking moment. He buys a mattress and forgets about the bedframe, for a while just sleeping on the floor. He doesn’t have a television but does buy a small radio so he can keep a classic rock station playing. He keeps himself preoccupied with working extra hours, whiskey, and sketching. Sometimes he falls asleep with the lights on. He gets better at cooking. God isn’t there. God is quiet.

 

*

 

When he arrives at work in the early morning, sun just rising, the ocean sometimes smells tangy like blood. As the sun comes up, the orange, purple, reds, all look like bruises, old wounds reopened.

 

*

 

There’s another dock worker who invites him out to a bar within spitting distance from his apartment. Marcus decides his nightly routine of whiskey and trying not to think of Tomas’ face when he said _Not forever_ can wait. He orders a beer and lets his coworker talk about his daughter. It’s not so bad _,_ hearing about someone else’s happiness. He listens for a long time, nodding at all the right moments and laughing at the stories. It feels good to learn about someone new.

“She sounds lovely. How old is she?” Marcus asks, taking a sip of beer.

“She’s fifteen. I started teaching her how to drive. She’s terrible at parking.”

Marcus laughs. Then he thinks about Tomas trying to Parallel Park in Chicago. He swallows hard, willing himself to push the memory away. He had smirked into the back of his hand, amused and endeared by Tomas’ piss poor driving skills. He downs his beer and orders another.

He’s already drunk when he gets home, fumbling with the keys. He still pours himself two fingers of whiskey, realizing he feels worse.

“I’m not sorry,” Marcus whispers. “I won’t be sorry for keeping him alive.” He clutches the kitchen counter for support, then wipes at his face with the back of his hand. He takes in his surroundings. The beige walls and the beige carpet of this apartment. It’s sickening. He grew so used to staying in rooms with no color, but Tomas had always been there so it hadn’t been so difficult at the time. Now it’s just emptiness. No God, no Tomas. Just Marcus and his demons, all of them howling at once.

 

*

 

Sometimes when he wakes up the whiskey bottle has been moved to the side table, taken out of his hand. Sometimes there’s a warmth against him when he wakes. But Marcus knows there aren’t ghosts of people who are alive, and he’s imagining things. Cooking up fantasies. Tomas never lied down against him anyhow.

 

*

 

Marcus finds himself going to the ocean often. Not just to work, but before and after too. The smell of it follows him home. He watches it waiting for something, anything. He doesn’t know what he expects. He wants God’s voice. He thinks maybe if he concentrates on the ocean he won’t concentrate on the shape of Tomas’ mouth or the softness of his hands. If he instead watches the waves and listens to the rhythm of the ocean, Tomas’ face will fade. He hopes.

 

*

 

Marcus tries to imagine Mouse and Tomas performing an exorcism. Tomas is so soft and Mouse has become so hardened. He can’t imagine what they’d be like, two completely different frameworks. Tomas wouldn’t let Mouse pull the trigger. At least that’s what Marcus thinks. For a selfish moment he imagines that they have discussed him. It doesn’t end well. He knows how difficult he is. How hard headed. How he had tried to send Tomas away in the beginning, not knowing what to do with such an open person who was hearing God for the very first time.

 

*

 

Marcus finds himself lonely. It’s normally more an annoyance than a real grievance. This isn’t the first time, but never has it been so succinct. Of all the people Marcus has known in his life, none of them have ever been his. His was not a life meant to be filled with people, but he loves everyone so much, so easily, times like this make it feel like such a waste.

The closest had been Mouse. So sweet. He had never thought she’d turn out as tough as she was now. Couldn’t be the same woman. Had he made her like that? He laughs off the thought. As if he could have been the one to make her all hard edges and rugged power. It’s been twenty years.

Then there’s all the people he’s saved. Those possessed. He feels so close to them. It’s always right after an exorcism that he finds himself a little lost, all on his own again, waiting for God to guide him. He misses Casey too. Various others. He chokes on the thought of Gabriel, an old grief ripped open.

Tomas though. For a very brief amount of time, Tomas had been his. His pupil, his partner, his friend. There had been many times he had wanted to kiss him as well, and the memories of these desires is so dizzyingly shameful. There was the first time, after they had thought they had saved Casey, so foolish. In that crowded bar in Chicago, Tomas teasing him over cheap beer. He was so, so handsome, and Marcus had felt reckless asking Tomas to stay just a little while longer. After the first time there were numerous occurrences. A shitty motel room in Kansas, when Tomas had fallen onto his bed completely exhausted, eyes shut and face smooth, peaceful at last after nights of screaming. A crisp fall night spent in the back of the truck bed, the two of them parked out in farmland in Pennsylvania, watching the stars. Falling asleep just like that. Getting drunk on a beach out in California once, after exorcising a small boy, age five. Tomas smelled like the ocean a day later. A dive bar in Ohio, where it had been snowing so hard Marcus had actually been nervous about driving back to the motel. Where they had shot pool, and Tomas had lost miserably, so drunk from three beers, laughing steadily into the pool stick, fingers blue with chalk.

Nothing would ever come to pass.

 

*

 

The water is freezing. He’s shaking, arms wrapped around his torso. He needs to go home. But the ocean calls to him late at night and he doesn’t sleep anyway. The moon is hidden behind clouds tonight, and the darkness swallows him. He feels so small. He sits down in the damp sand, and tries to listen. Just to listen. Not to expect anything. To merely listen to the waves. To see if there is anything else. The smell of salt and something else, tangy and bitter hits him. He gets sand in his shoes, and waits, pushing his hands deeper and deeper into the sand. The sound of the ocean almost puts him to sleep. He hears nothing but the ocean, nothing but a gentle rocking. With his eyes closed, it feels like his entire body is being rocked too. He hears nothing, and for the first time it doesn’t cause him pain.

 

*

 

“You dropped him in my lap!” Marcus snarls at the walls. “That was a sick, twisted game you were playing at. Was it just another test? Guess what, I failed, is that what you wanted?” He’s crying so hard his face is tingling. He’s grinding his teeth. He hates speaking to God knowing he’ll get no reply. He doesn’t want to be doing this, but it’s all coming out so quickly. “I would have stayed, but I don’t know that I could have saved him. You left me, so I couldn’t be sure. I would not watch him wither away for weeks, months, longer. I didn’t want him in the first place.” He’s whispering, mainly to himself, to no one at all. His voice is so meek, he hardly recognizes it as his own.

He falls against his mattress, breathing hard. His body is weak. This grief is so taxing. He’s fifty four years old and he’s never been this maddened by love. He supposes he never got the chance before now.

 

*

 

He used to not need anyone else. It was God and himself, and that was all he needed. He had never felt empty. Figure it be the fault of some just starting out priest, fumbling around like a new born deer in his desire to please. Tomas, so unsure of himself, writing love letters to a married woman. And those letters, what a real atrocity. They had been embarrassing to read, highly embarrassing. Not that Marcus knew what to put inside a love letter.

All those months ago, he had scoffed at God. _This is what you give me?_ he had asked, quite desperate. It had been a nightmare. He couldn’t keep track of Tomas, found him insufferable in the beginning. What was he meant to be doing with this man twenty years younger than himself? That was, of course, a whole other horror to unpack.

But as time had passed, Tomas had been much stronger than Marcus had ever realized. This gift, these visions of his, were both blessing and curse. But the strength of it. God had bought them together in a vision after all. At times it felt as if Tomas was a reborn saint. That was blasphemous. Marcus had the thought from time to time regardless.

If he were to write a love letter now though, he thinks he knows what he would put inside.

 

*

 

He dreams that Tomas is in his bedroom. Sitting on the mattress with him. He’s smiling, but Marcus sees the double iris from where he lays. Tomas begins to laugh and then his back cracks in half. Marcus wakes, thinking of Mexico City.

Sometimes he dreams of Andy too. It’s not so much dream as it is memory. Marcus gets the chance not to, but he pulls the trigger every time. He had gone to all the trouble of not losing Tomas but it feels like he’s lost him anyway.

 

*

 

He surprises himself with praying for the first time after three months. Really praying. Not attempting at a conversation with God but instead doing the Rosary in whispers. He does it three times in English, then once in Spanish for good measure. “Please keep them safe,” he says at the end. He does feel better afterwards. Not cleansed or like he can feel God at all, but the ritual had been nice. A reminder that at the very least, prayer could calm him. Steady him.

 

*

 

He feels violently ill in November. He has fevers on and off. He finally has a full bed because he realized how ridiculous it was for a middle aged man to be sleeping on just a mattress. That helped. But he’s sick and he knows it’s from the lack of sleep. The nightmares and not nightmares alike. The drinking and not eating enough. He knows this yet the persistent sickness is somehow surprising. He wraps his blankets around himself and wakes on and off fitfully. He dreams of steady hands against his temple, a thumb swiping over his brow. He shudders into the blankets and opens his eyes, dazed. Marcus sweats and shakes all night, in the morning drinking tea, listening to the rain hit against his windows. The shaking ceases after all.

 

*

 

There are memories that make him so humiliated. Just a few. A car ride when it was very late and Tomas had asked him if he’d ever been with anyone and Marcus had stayed silent, watching the road curve. There was also the time when Marcus had watched Tomas dress after coming out of the bathroom. _What?_ Tomas had asked, eyebrow raised, and instead of answering Marcus had put his face in his hands and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and sipped his coffee. But he had looked. Hadn’t meant to stare, but it had happened. Marcus thinks of it now and flushes. Tomas had been so kind. So curious. _I know hardly anything about you._ No one did, that was the whole point. None of it mattered. Tomas had been so curious, and now he knew the truth; Marcus had turned his back on God for him. The painful obviousness of the situation splayed out.

 

*

 

It’s midnight, and he’s been walking around aimlessly for over an hour. It’s cold, but he doesn’t notice. He’s drunk, again. It’s boring at this point. The nights and days all blur together, the loneliness the only sobering thing. Marcus goes to make a right turn towards his apartment, finally waking up and feeling that he needs to go home. As he turns around a brick building he’s met face to face with two bigger men. One has a beard and the other has a knife. _I’m being mugged_ he thinks somewhat cheerfully.

“Hand over the wallet,” the bearded man says. Marcus laughs. The two muggers share a look and then the one with the knife moves forward. Marcus ducks, then punches him only an inch away from his nose. After all, Marcus is a little rusty.

He hasn’t been in a fight in ages, and the way his heart is beating is fantastic. The second man punches Marcus and he knows immediately he’ll have a black eye. Marcus manages to get the knife out of the picture by bending the man’s wrist backwards and snatching it. Marcus is quick, but unfortunately the other two are bigger. He gets hit again in the mouth, and then in the stomach. For a brief moment he thinks he might have been just one hair too reckless, and is afraid he’ll pass out. But he still has the knife. He knows he’ll never use it, not after everything, but he does motion with it and they seem to think it isn’t worth it. They had expected someone less dangerous. They walk away, and Marcus walks home a different way, knife in his pocket.

Back at the apartment Marcus inspects the knife lying in bed. He switches it open and closed for lack of anything better to do. He gets up for water and places the knife in his dresser drawer. He doesn’t even want it. He sleeps for seven hours and wakes up with a pounding head. He hadn’t bothered to inspect his injuries when he’d first gotten home. In the morning sun his lip is swollen and his eye is dark. He spits blood into the sink.

 

*

 

 

_I had a dream. Dreams. It’s the same dream. And you were in it._

*

 

He gets sick of all his moping. Of all his sadness that is doing nothing of value. He hasn’t been so useless in quite possibly ever. There’s always been something. There’s always been a soul to save. It could be argued that he could try saving himself but Marcus knows he’s beyond that now. He stops the drinking. He’s too old to be drinking away his emotions. Though, in his defense he never exactly got to be young.

 

*

 

It’s so dark in the bedroom. Marcus can’t sleep, and he’s surrounded by darkness. Every few minutes he can hear a car pass, the soft rumble of the wind, but mostly it’s quiet. He smiles to himself, right hand on his belly. It’s the first time he’s felt completely alone with his thoughts in months.

“I’m tired,” Marcus says to the walls. “I’m so tired. It’s so exhausting being like this, you know,” he says. The walls, of course, say nothing. He hasn’t had anything to drink in a week, and his body feels good. He feels quite good, but his mind his racing, and it’s so painful to think so clearly. Tomas’ face is no longer quietly blurred. It was never blurred for long or that well, given that Marcus loved seeing that face, but at least it hadn’t been so sharp, and if it had been Marcus wouldn’t remember in the morning.

Each morning he looks out at the ocean, all glimmering and daunting. He stares at it waiting for the water to do something meaningful. For some sign of anchoring. But all it does is sit there, being blue grey green, mocking him.

 

*

 

It’s a quiet, early afternoon. Marcus’ arms are sore from lifting. He hasn’t had anything to drink in seventeen days and that isn’t long, but it’s something. It’s a start. The air whips around Marcus, and he tightens his scarf around his neck. Something prickles at the back of his head, at the nape of his neck. He walks towards the edge of the docks, and nearly loses his breath. He hears his name, soft and so, so quiet. Impossibly quiet. But there, undeniably.

_Marcus._

“Yes, I can hear you,” Marcus says. He can hardly belief what he’s hearing. It’s been so long. He might collapse. He’s shaking, his body no longer a thing that is his own. Once again, he is a vessel. He swallows hard, unable to feel his feet, legs, hands. “Yes, I’m listening,” he whispers. He can feel it. His eyes well up.

 _Marcus_ the voice repeats. _I dropped him in your lap._

The ocean is a steady rhythm in front of him. It’s choppy today, incessant with a reminder that a storm is going to roll in this evening. A grey sky hovering over.

_He’s for you. You’re allowed to love things, Marcus._

The voice doesn’t seem possible, but Marcus feels it in his whole body. He feels it inside his heart beating so quickly it might jump through his throat and land in the sea. He grips the wooden railing and tries not to blink too much, he’s blinded by tears and yet he’s frightened to release them.

“Tomas?” Marcus says, but it sounds so small as he watches the sky, the smell of the sea hitting him with every wave rolling in. But the water, it calms, and the tears flow.

 

**Author's Note:**

> the show like, already did this, but i needed to explain my passions
> 
> for more yelling go to blairwiches.tumblr.com


End file.
